The Parish Council meets at 7.30pm on Thursday, 20 March in the Church Room at Potten End. The agenda can be downloaded and contains links to all the supporting papers.

HertsLynx

The meeting will start with a presentation from Alice Missler of Hertfordshire County Council who will provide an update on the HertsLynx service. If you have any questions or observations on the service – this is your opportunity to raise them!.

Local Government re-organisation

As I reported last month, the Government has announced plans to re-organise local government and has asked Hertfordshire County Council and its districts, including Dacorum, to submit interim plans by 21 March 2025 with full proposals to follow by 28 November. The Government has made it very clear that it expects the plans to be for one or more new unitary councils in Hertfordshire, 

The Council has received a letter from the Chief Executive of Dacorum asking for its views and will discuss at the meeting whether it should respond given that the preliminary response to the Government is due this Friday, and if so how.

Highways

There are even more road closures in and around the parish over the next three months for a variety of reasons. 

• Frithsden Land  is closed for work to the road surface from 17 – 22 March
• Roman Rd is closed for drainage investigation from 17 – 22 March
• Leighton Buzzard Rd will be closed overnight between 2 and 4 April for resurfacing. 
• Hempstead Lane will have traffic restrictions at various times in March, April and May for Highways and Affinity Water
• Water End Rd will also have various closures in May and June for Open Reach and Highways

For more up to date information on roadworks please refer to Causeway one network

Planning

The Council will consider the following applications at its meeting (reference numbers relate to the Dacorum Planning Portal):

• 15 The Back, Potten End – first floor rear extension (25/00570/FHA)

Potten End needs YOU!

Looking for a new challenge?

Perhaps you would you like to be more involved in our village….

Maybe you have retired but would like to make use the skills you have developed over the years …..

Our Village Hall is a resource for everyone, home to many local clubs and organisations and an important Potten End landmark. She is approaching her centenary and, whilst in pretty good shape, still needs to be carefully and prudently looked after. This is done by a board of trustees, however, after 10 years at the helm, the current Chair of the trustees, Mike Wallis, will be stepping down at the next AGM in June, so the Village Hall is looking for someone to take over the lead. Could you be that person?

The Hall has a comprehensive Business Plan in place and the Chairperson is supported by a management team of Buildings Adviser, Treasurer and Secretary. The day-to-day management of the Hall is carried out by the Caretaker Manager, Gary, who lives onsite. The board of trustees are a friendly bunch and meet 3 times a year to monitor the progress of the Business Plan, agree new priorities and consider issues that may arise and plan a couple of fundraising events each year to help meet the costs of maintaining an aging building.

If you have a glimmer of interest and would like to find out more about the role of the Chair or perhaps becoming a trustee of the Hall, Mike, or any of the Trustees, would be very happy to have an informal chat with you.

The footpath connecting Frithsden Copse to the Hertfordshire Way near to Horseshoe Pond (FP17) has just been resurfaced by Dacorum Borough Council.  Note that footpaths in the parish are maintained by Dacorum through its Rights of Way Officer.  The parish council keeps a watching brief on them and reports problems so that they can be addressed as soon as possible.  Whilst Dacorum looks after the surface of paths it is the responsibility of adjoining landowners to ensure that there are no vegetation, or any other, encroachments.

Our new solar-powered Speed Indicator Device (SID) has just been installed on Hempstead Lane.  A mount has also been installed on Water Lane Road and the SID will be moved between the two locations from time to time.  The parish council is grateful to David Lloyd (our Hertfordshire County Councillor) and Terry Douris (our Dacorum Borough Councillor) for their support of its efforts to reduce the speed of vehicles passing through our parish.

The Parish Council is pleased to announce the recent co-option of two new Councillors.  Cllr Simon Nelson was co-opted in September and Cllr Geoff Brown was co-opted in October.  Their details will appear on this website in due course.